It is known that when a vehicle is subjected to sudden external forces such as those caused if the vehicle crashes into another object or the vehicle is impacted by a shock wave of an explosion, damage to objects and injury to occupants within the vehicle will likely occur.
As vehicle designers often aim to provide maximum protection to occupants of a vehicle, many types of vehicle safety seats are known, which are secured to inner surfaces of the vehicle, particularly the lower and upper surfaces thereof.
It should be noted that for the purposes of the specification and the claims that the term “vehicle” is intended to include all types of means of transportation such as land, sea and air vehicles and the terms “lower surface” and “upper surface” may respectively refer not only to a floor and ceiling of a vehicle but also to a portion of a side wall adjacent to the floor or ceiling thereof.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,314,720 discloses an aircraft safety seat comprising a pair of supporting straps secured at their upper ends via an anchoring arrangement to the side wall of an aircraft. The seat further comprises a seat pan pivotally secured to the side wall of the aircraft by a connection element in the form of a hinge and to a lower surface of the aircraft via a non-resilient shock absorbing strut thereby rigidly securing the seat pan under normal loads but yielding when the load exceeds a predetermined amount.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,538,427 discloses an aircraft seat having a seat mounting arrangement by means of which a seat may be mounted upon a chair supporting frame which permits lateral and vertical movement thereof with respect to the aircraft. The frame has tubes which are attached to the upright bulkhead channels of the aircraft.
One known method of minimizing damage to objects within a vehicle, subjected to sudden external forces, is to space the object from the inner surfaces of the vehicle, so as to prevent impact of the surfaces of the vehicle to the object. An object may be spaced from the inner surfaces of a vehicle by the use of an anchoring arrangement including a plurality of connection elements fixed to the inner surfaces and the object and flexible elongated elements connecting the object to be spaced to the connection elements, thereby anchoring it to the vehicle.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,474,347 discloses a safety seat comprising a seat member, an anchoring arrangement having fixed connection points on the upper and lower surfaces of the vehicle, suspending means held by the anchoring arrangement in a predetermined spatial disposition between the upper surface of the vehicle and the seat member, rotary energy absorbing means mounted between the suspending means and the upper surface, and first and second pairs of energy absorbing means mounted between the seat member and the lower surface of the vehicle and capable of absorbing energy in both tension and compression.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,868,143 discloses a safety seat for a vehicle comprising a beam pivotally supported by a vehicle structure, an anchoring arrangement having connection elements fixed to the upper and lower surfaces of the vehicle and the seat, a pair of rigid struts having one ends thereof pivotally attached to the vehicle floor beneath the beam, a rigid member connecting the other ends of the struts, a pair of flexible suspenders connected between the beam and the rigid member, a flexible sling for seating an occupant connected to the suspenders via a webbing, straps connected between the rigid member and a lower surface of the vehicle and a lap belt for the sling.
Certain suspension arrangements suspend objects in a vehicle in a position spaced from the inner surfaces of the vehicle and other objects, via the use of non-rigid elements only, which connect connection elements of an anchoring arrangement and the object, thereby preventing transfer of forces impacting the vehicles surfaces to the object via any rigid elements. Such non-rigid elements may be flexible elongated suspension elements, such as ropes and belts, held by an anchoring arrangement in a predetermined spatial disposition to suspend the object in a position spaced from at least some of the surfaces likely to be impacted by sudden forces.
WO 2005/028245 discloses a safety seat for vehicles consisting of a harness suspended from fixed points of the vehicle. Fabric retaining belts lead from the harness to belt retractors that are located at fixed points of the vehicle and that pre-tension the belts. The seat is equipped with a selector mechanism for enabling the belt retractors to adopt a free-running state to adjust or tension the belts or a locked state.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,829,702 discloses a safety seat for vehicles wherein the body of an occupant is supported within a resilient net which is secured to resilient supporting straps connected to the interior of the vehicle. The safety seat comprises a plurality of spaced flexible riser straps and an anchoring arrangement for holding the straps via connection elements which connect the ends of each of the straps to a supporting structure. The safety seat further comprising a resilient body supporting net having lateral edge portions secured along its length to one of the riser straps.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,276,080 discloses a safety seat for vehicles comprising a seat constructed as a closed textile cover, which is fixable above and below, by means of fastening belts fitted thereto, between fixed points on the floor and the roof of the vehicle.